Final day of a wash out Y Not festival cancelled

By the time organisers of the Y Not festival called off their Sunday festivities this weekend, attendees had pretty much got an answer to the event’s titular question. Heavy rainfall turned the site into a mud bath and led to some sets on previous days also being cancelled.

With the social networks already busy with festival-goers bemoaning the conditions on the Y Not site, promoters announced that: “Unfortunately we’ve had to take the difficult decision to cancel Sunday due to the adverse weather conditions across the weekend, after consulting all the relevant authorities. The safety of our guests, performers and crew is our primary concern and the potential risk was too severe for Sunday to go ahead”.

The statement added: “We are very sorry for the disappointment and disruption caused to everyone who was looking forward to the final day of the festival. We understand that people will have questions about refunds. We will be giving all our guests further information about this over the coming days”.

Some festival-goers have hit out at the way the festival dealt with the bad weather, claiming that management didn’t seem to have sufficient measures in place to deal with heavy rainfall, and that communication onsite was particularly poor. Wash out years obviously create a number of challenges for festival promoters, though heavy rainfall during the summer months is hardly unknown in the UK, and critics have said Y Not’s management should have been better prepared to deal with the swampy conditions.

Though the MD of Ground Control, which was overseeing the production of the event, has denied those allegations. John Drape told the BBC that they had 80 tonnes of woodchip on site to firm up the waterlogged ground, while adding: “We have meetings every six hours to discuss things like weather conditions and ground conditions. On Saturday night it became increasingly clear conditions were deteriorating and at midnight there was not one agency which felt it was safe to continue”.

Either way, giving the backlash online, it’s not a great start to the next phase of Y Not’s evolution, the festival having been acquired by Global’s Broadwick Live venture last year.